I'm playing arena since the beginning and before MoP, if you was playing a lot better than your opponents, you had a very good chance to win by outplaying them.
Since MoP, i feel like being a skilled player doesn't really matter, if you don't play the fotm comp, you just can't win even if you play perfectly.

For example : I queued to a thug, they were at 2350 mmr, 3 humans backpedallers.
I said something like "Yes, free win" on skype, we outplayed them so hard in the arena and at some point, they oneshotted the shaman in less then 3sec. I started to flame my mate saying "dude, they are so shit, how can we lose to them" but I finally realized that it's just how the game is now.
I chedked their armory, they started to play WoW when MoP started. :/

This is just an example, same scenario goes for a lot of comps aswell, i feel like being useless when i queue some classes.

These kind of threads pop up literally every single season. Even back in TBC you had dumb comps that could nearly global you during cds (elem sham + bm hunter). The pace of the game has just increased a fair bit, and it requires you to react extremely fast to enemy offensive cds. Honestly so many people praise TBC, but I'd rather not have those 45 min - 2 hour long drawn out games because nobody is dying.

Braindance, on 22 June 2013 - 07:05 AM, said:

The current season is at a very good spot balance-wise. There is a comp variety that hasn't been seen in the game since s8.

90% of teams have one of those classes, 10% of the rest are classes that people don't want to play with such as affli, monk, hpal, moonkin etc ... but it's very understandable, why would you play with a shit/average class when you can play with a god class ?

I miss wotlk personally the most, you could play just about anything and be successful if you played right. I remember just stacking double dispel in a comp would make it viable, I played ret/destro/disc in s6 to like 2500 and it worked like a charm. I miss seeing those random comps with really good players just rofl stomping people.

I suppose you can do it now if you play rdruid/spriest/x, but it's still basically godcomp minus block.

its just not satisfying most games, maybe its because i play a warrior

even when we win its just not satisfying, its beacuse something died in a warbringer/shockwave, raw skillas.

This too, kills are so streamlined. I remember in previous expansions an extremely good warrior could bounce from target to target with charge/intercept to score skills and stuff. Now you just switch into rogue stance.

The problem in MoP is CC. There is far too much CC, and for a few classes, its just to easy for them to land.

Rogues, atleast for me have made this game so much less fun. Every average rogue can literally lock you down forever. Cheap, Garrote, Kidney, Kick, Gouge. Its the basic rogue control chain ontop of mind numbing poison. It just makes the game not that fun to play at all vs them.

Hunters are nearly as bad with CC. Scatter, Silence, Intimidate Stun, Web Stun, Lullaby. The CC is just too easy to pull off with such short cooldowns.

I've also noticed watching other people stream, just how absurb CC is in this game. It feels like with certain comps they are literally just spamming CC on the enemy team for the entire game and it just doesnt seem like fun gameplay.

CC in general should be harder to land and there should be less of it.

people reminising about past expansions is what makes it unfun. Every expansion has literally had some retarded ass shit that people would cry about and compare to the previous expansions. BC- Mace stun omg vanilla was so much better. WOTLK, DKs, pallys, wizards omg BC was so much better. Cata Rogues, RLS OMG WOTLK was so much better. I think you get the point.

If people would remember all the shitty parts about the previous expansions instead of what they had fun with, nobody would really compare and say oh wow its not fun anymore.

MoP really isn't that bad. TBH from someone that's played every xpac, MoP is probably one of the best. Don't be so biased all the time, theres going to be stupid OP shit every single xpac.

people reminising about past expansions is what makes it unfun. Every expansion has literally had some retarded ass shit that people would cry about and compare to the previous expansions. BC- Mace stun omg vanilla was so much better. WOTLK, DKs, pallys, wizards omg BC was so much better. Cata Rogues, RLS OMG WOTLK was so much better. I think you get the point.

If people would remember all the shitty parts about the previous expansions instead of what they had fun with, nobody would really compare and say oh wow its not fun anymore.

MoP really isn't that bad. TBH from someone that's played every xpac, MoP is probably one of the best. Don't be so biased all the time, theres going to be stupid OP shit every single xpac.

This is a completely stupid opinion. That's basically saying ONLY REMEMBER THE BAD PARTS AND NOT THE GOOD PARTS OF OLD EXPANSIONS. If you honestly think that only playing a select 4, maybe 5 classes in a select 4, maybe 5 comps is fun then you're some kind of crazy.

Lets do this in mongoloid terms:

BC - Play multiple viable comps, a decent amount of viable specs, long games.
WotLK- Tons of viable comps, most specs viable at some point, short to medium length games.
Cata - Few viable comps, decent amount of viable specs, short boring games.
MoP - Very few viable comps, very few viable specs, some classes not even viable whatsoever, short uneventful games due to arbitrary cc and ridiculous damage.

WotLK was the best by far I think for arena, specifically s7/s8. There will never be balance in the game but I would say that s7/s8 was the best we're gonna see regarding fun/skill and with such a huge variety of comps and fast paced play, people even spammed 2s even though you couldn't get a title in those seasons (and took it seriously).

As for MoP, there is retarded stuff as always and it's debateable if it's worse than any other season or whatever. The good thing is though, is that you can change talents/glyphs in the prep area so it's way less RNG of what you queue into and has lowered the gap between the possibility of beating counters or not --- this is the best change ever to arena I think.

As for the OP, I agree at how insanely stupid thug is atm they can make 10 mistakes a second and win on high rating. But there are always insanely easy comps to play like this!

This is a completely stupid opinion. That's basically saying ONLY REMEMBER THE BAD PARTS AND NOT THE GOOD PARTS OF OLD EXPANSIONS. If you honestly think that only playing a select 4, maybe 5 classes in a select 4, maybe 5 comps is fun then you're some kind of crazy.

Lets do this in mongoloid terms:

BC - Play multiple viable comps, a decent amount of viable specs, long games. No multiple specs-no multiple viable comps
WotLK- Tons of viable comps, most specs viable at some point, short to medium length games. PvE gear-prot warriors-beastcleaves etc
Cata - Few viable comps, decent amount of viable specs, short boring games. Worst expansion of the all
MoP - Very few viable comps, very few viable specs, some classes not even viable whatsoever, short uneventful games due to arbitrary cc and ridiculous damage. Completely off

This whole post reeks of oblivion and lament for the lost "good times". MoP has by FAR the greater amount of viable specs and a decent variety of comps. There are always comps that are better than others but I would rather have 5 top comps than 2.

People say thug and thug and thug. Wanna compare thug to atc? Or beastcleave? Or s6 tsg? Or rls? Retarded comps ALWAYS existed.

Take a piece of paper and write down retarded stuff in each season. By doing that you will see that s12 easily makes it to the top 4 most balanced seasons.

The main reason all of you say "OH WOTLK MAN SO NICE" or "BC ALL THE MONEY MAN", is that tons of people played back then and you were getting instant queues at any mmr any time of the day, that kept your thirst to play sated, even tho balance was utter shit.

So, try to short some stuff on your head and you will see how good MoP actually is compared to the "good ol' times". I know, I'm an old timer after all.

justchecking, on 10 November 2014 - 11:58 PM, said:

Going to blizzcon looking for a fight is like going to the official wow arena forums for pvp advice :)

Renaissance_Man, on 31 July 2013 - 04:31 AM, said:

If I had a gun with two bullets and I was in a room with Hitler, bin Laden, and you, I would shoot you twice.

While I agree that any BC nostalgia regarding balance is absurd, I wouldn't say WotLK balance was shit. It had flaws, but you saw great comp variety on tournaments and on ladders, and I think that's the time where individual player skill had the biggest impact on the actual matches; to the point that some people could achieve ridiculous things with very low gear (e.g. Vileroze full furious rank 1 in S8). This is just an example, I'm not trying to say that gear is out of control (it is); my point is that LK gameplay felt far more involving of all expansions and skill decided more than it does now. I'm also not trying to say that "theres no skill involved" now, I'm trying to say that it's impact on the game [results] is less than it used to be before. It's much more binary now, with other - predefined - factors like gear and comp taking a bigger slice of that pie, know what I'm saying?

I guess I'm trying to change the subject here because that doesn't have much to do with comp vs comp balance, but I think balance is more than just statistics and the chance of comp A winning comp B. After all, you can achieve that kind of balance by infinitely homogenizing everything and giving everybody the same tools, or even reducing the amount of tools. But that won't necessarily make the game more fun.

While I agree that any BC nostalgia regarding balance is absurd, I wouldn't say WotLK balance was shit. It had flaws, but you saw great comp variety on tournaments and on ladders, and I think that's the time where individual player skill had the biggest impact on the actual matches; to the point that some people could achieve ridiculous things with very low gear (e.g. Vileroze full furious rank 1 in S8). This is just an example, I'm not trying to say that gear is out of control (it is); my point is that LK gameplay felt far more involving of all expansions and skill decided more than it does now. I'm also not trying to say that "theres no skill involved" now, I'm trying to say that it's impact on the game [results] is less than it used to be before. It's much more binary now, with other - predefined - factors like gear and comp taking a bigger slice of that pie, know what I'm saying?

I guess I'm trying to change the subject here because that doesn't have much to do with comp vs comp balance, but I think balance is more than just statistics and the chance of comp A winning comp B. After all, you can achieve that kind of balance by infinitely homogenizing everything and giving everybody the same tools, or even reducing the amount of tools. But that won't necessarily make the game more fun.

There's a reason why WotLK AT is so active. WotLK, not BC.

Please elaborate on that. What is stopping players now from exhibiting the same "skill" levels as in WotLK.

justchecking, on 10 November 2014 - 11:58 PM, said:

Going to blizzcon looking for a fight is like going to the official wow arena forums for pvp advice :)

Renaissance_Man, on 31 July 2013 - 04:31 AM, said:

If I had a gun with two bullets and I was in a room with Hitler, bin Laden, and you, I would shoot you twice.